Freedom
by Ramia
Summary: Hunting story, from the hunted, not hunter. One Shot. R&R. Rated T for death.


Freedom Fought

I escaped! Man had tricked me and I was made a captive, but I didn't lose hope. I fought valiantly with my enemy. I would have won, if my enemy has been animal too; equal. But it wasn't and I lost. I fought with a foreign manmade box of manmade vines woven tightly together. My prison had no mercy. Felt nothing for its prey. It tore my flesh from me causing much pain and suffering. But I survived. I refused to let my body die. Slowly I nursed it back to a half-health, where I could try again.

My enemy fed me little, but it was enough. That little amount of nourishment combined with the countless hours that I spent sleeping; I slowly gained enough energy to fight. I did not attack Him on sight, no matter how much I relished the thought. I waited; waited for an opening in which to take advantage of Him.

My patience paid off. My opening came. He did not know that I heard them talking. That I understood, but I did. He was selling me to the other creature, the other man, to put me into a prison. I was determined that I would never be put into one of their prisons, ever again.

When he came towards my enclosed cell, I attacked. I succeeded in my purpose. He became very nervous. I could smell his fear. He became careless. I merely smiled to myself in a very confident manner.

He opened the trap door at the bottom of the larger one and he tricked me into putting my neck into a noose of wire. My turn. I tricked him. He chocked the breath out of me, but I did not let it all out. He allowed me a little air. I combined it with the air I had left, my reserve. I had enough to complete my task.

I played opossum with him and he bought it; he thought me dead. When he took the wire from my neck, it was to shove me into his waiting cage. I opened first one eye and then the other, to show him that I was indeed very much alive. His face took on a look of sheer terror; such as I have never seen before, anywhere. I growled a deep spine-chilling, haunting, latration that ended in a convulsive foaming snarl. Then and only then, I brought forth all of my bitterness and resentment upon this creature; this Man.

In My mind I recalled everything that he had ever done to me and mine. All the pain that was deliberately inflicted, all the torment that I was forced to endure. And all the anguish I had felt at being separated and forced from my family. I knew beyond a shadow of any doubt that this Man would pay for all that my kind had suffered because of His Kind

My legs sprang to life. In less time than can be measured, I was upright on all fours. He saw what was coming; I saw it in his eyes. And he knew there was nothing he could do. His face turned a colour that would shame the newly fallen palest snow, or freshly burned white ashes. There was no word that could describe the look of tremendous and absolute horror upon his face. The face of his own death.

It took even less time for my legs to spring off of the ground, launching me onto his chest. My teeth sought and found his exposed, bare neck. With no hesitation whatsoever, I sunk them deep into the flesh of his neck. Speaking death with every inch. Still they went deeper; seeking for his life line, his jugular vein and the permanent silence of this man.

The Voice of death grew louder and louder with each passing second. The fight for and against death increasing even greater. His screams for help and his bellows of intense anguish abruptly ceased. A strange gurgled noise was the final sound to escape his lips as I found my mark.

The entire forest around me became as if it were nonexistent. It was an eerie, deathly silence undisturbed by even the call of a bird.

I released my grip on his neck. Then I dropped his limp, lifeless body and I let lose a distressed call of my own. An anguished howl to the sky; breaking the stillness.

More of his hated kind pursued me after I left that place of death. But I ran. With the last of my strength, into the denseness of the willow thicket. I managed to elude my pursuers until the sun began to dink below the horizon. Then they were forced to turn back, but not before injuring me on final time. One of them was inside the giant metal eagle and pointed something at me from above. The wound was not fatal, but it seared my flesh. It burned like the heat of a forest fire in the fall.

That night I slept for a few hours and then set out northward. When I could go no further, with the last of my strength, I scrambled into a swampy part of the forest to hide and to wait. If I could not outdistance Them, then I could out fight Them. I knew that man could not come into this thicket, but I did not think that They would send a different, better hunting animal to track me. They sent mere dogs after me, a King of the forest. I took care of them and their beasts, renewing my strength.

I had slept before They came again for the second time, so I was more than prepared, alert and stronger. I tracked down and killed the first dog with little effort. The second and third followed soon after the first, but the fourth turned and ran out to his masters. With his tail between his legs, blood flowing from his hind haunches. When they saw only one howling mongrel come out of the thicket, they too turned and fled from me.

With man gone I was able to sleep longer and restore most of my strength. I spelt for the remainder of that day, that night and most of the next. Only to wake just before sunset and begin my long and perilous trek to the north and to my homeland.


End file.
